Neil Gorsuch's mother was the first female head of the EPA

Judge Neil Gorsuch.
(Image credit: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images)

If Judge Neil Gorsuch's last name sounds familiar, it's probably not because of him, but rather his mother, Anne Gorsuch Burford, who was head of the Environmental Protection Agency under President Ronald Reagan.

Gorsuch is President Trump's nominee for Supreme Court justice, and a federal appeals court judge from Colorado. In 1981, his mother was serving as a Colorado state legislator when Reagan chose her to lead the EPA, the first woman to do so. Alongside James Watt as secretary of the interior, Burford "personified the 'Sagebrush Rebellion' of the 1970s and 1980s, an attempt by ranchers, farmers, miners, and oil interests to overturn federal land use and environmental regulations," Jerry Adler writes at Yahoo News. The EPA's budget was cut by 22 percent, and research and regulations on air and water pollution were dramatically scaled back.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.